Legion of Merit
military award of the United States Armed Forces
The Legion of Merit (LOM) is a military award of the United States Armed Forces which is given for exceptionally meritorious conduct in the performance of outstanding services and achievements. The decoration is issued to members of the eight uniformed services of the United States as well as to military and political figures of foreign governments.
The Legion of Merit (Commander degree) is one of only two United States military decorations to be issued as a neck order (the other being the Medal of Honor), and the only United States military decoration that may be issued in degrees (much like an order of chivalry or certain orders of merit), although the degrees including a neck ribbon are only awarded to non-U.S. nationals.
The Legion of Merit is seventh in the order of precedence of all U.S. military awards and is worn after the Defense Superior Service Medal and before the Distinguished Flying Cross. In contemporary use in the U.S. Armed Forces, the Legion of Merit is typically awarded to Army, Marine Corps, Air Force, and Space Force general officers and colonels, and Navy and Coast Guard flag officers and captains occupying senior command or very senior staff positions in their respective services. It may also be awarded to officers of lesser rank, senior warrant officers (typically in command positions at the rank of chief warrant officer 5), and to very senior enlisted personnel (typically in the rank of command sergeant major and Sergeant Major of the Army in the Army, fleet master chief petty officer and Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy in the Navy, command chief master sergeant and Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force in the Air Force, command chief master sergeant and Chief Master Sergeant of the Space Force in the Space Force, and Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps in the Marine Corps), but these instances are less frequent, typically by exception, and the circumstances vary by branch of service.
Authority to award the Legion of Merit is reserved for general officers and flag officers in pay grade O-9 (i.e., lieutenant general, vice admiral) and above, civilian Department of Defense personnel at assistant service secretary or Assistant Secretary of Defense level and above, or equivalent secretary-level civilian personnel with the Department of Homeland Security with direct oversight of the U.S. Coast Guard.
Criteria
The degrees of Chief Commander, Commander, Officer, and Legionnaire are awarded only to members of armed forces of foreign nations under the criteria outlined in Army Regulation 672-7 and is based on the relative rank or position of the recipient as follows:
Chief Commander: Head of state or government. However, this degree was awarded by President Roosevelt to some Allied World War II theater commanders, usually for joint amphibious landings or invasions. (The President had this power under Executive Order 9260 of October 29, 1942, paragraph 3b.)
Commander: Equivalent of a U.S. military chief of staff or higher position, but not to a head of state.
The public source identifies “Legion of Merit” as military award of the United States Armed Forces. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Legion, Merit and military.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 12, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q724443. The Library of Congress control number is sh2008009925. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1942.
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This entry incorporates text from “Legion of Merit” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.